Local Responses Grow To War, Humanitarian Crisis
By John McNamara
A resolution affirming Ukraine’s “independence and territorial integrity” will be considered by the New Britain Common Council at its March 9th meeting.
Alderman Aram Ayalon (D-3), consulting with members of the city’s Ukrainian and Polish communities, is submitting a resolution as war and a humanitarian crisis engulfs the Eastern European nation that gained independence after the fall of the former Soviet Union in 1991. The invading Russian Army, facing fierce resistance, has caused more than one million refugees to leave their homes for neighboring states including Poland and Moldova.
The resolution comes as local efforts get underway to respond to the crisis with financial and humanitarian support amid near universal condemnation of Russia’s week old invasion. Attorney Adrian Baron, a partner in the Podorowsky, Thompson and Baron law firm , on Broad Street, has offered assistance to families with relatives in Ukraine. Baron, executive director of the Polonia Business Association and lead organizer of the city’s Little Poland Festival, provides immigration services in his practice. “I know many Ukrainians speak Polish,” Baron wrote on the Facebook page. “I do speak Polish and can provide legal consultations in the language. I will further provide further information regarding the possibility of asylum applications for your friends and relatives who managed to make it to the US.”
Former City Alderman Adam Platosz, a member of the board of Saint Mary’s Ukrainian Othodox Church on Winter Street, favors a Council resolution that reflects the concerns of the Ukrainian American community in New Britain and Greater Hartford, many of whom have family members living in Ukraine. Platosz, also with relatives living in the western city of Lviv, will speak in favor of the resolution. To Platosz, reports of war crimes and increasing numbers of refugees, recalls the 1932-33 “terror famine” (Holodomor) that has been attributed to the actions of Dictator Joseph Stalin to squelch Ukraine’s independence movement in the last century.
[Related Story from 2016: Members of the Ukrainian American Community Protested The Trump Campaign’s Hiring of New Britain Native Paul Manafort by the Trump Presidential Campaign]
The Common Council resolution states: “New Britain is home to many residents of Ukrainian ancestry, and many who care deeply for and stand strongly in support of the Ukrainian people.”
“Whereas, New Britain is home to St. Josephat’s Ukrainian Catholic Church and St. Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church and serve as a community of culture and family.
Whereas, Democracy and self-determination are cornerstone values of both the United States and Ukraine; and
Whereas, Ukraine and the Ukrainian people represent a distinct culture with a long, proud history; and whereas, self-determination is the right of all people around the world, including the Ukrainian people; and whereas, a free and independent Ukraine is of vital importance to protecting the Ukrainian people, their history, art and culture.”
The resolution affirms New Britain’s official support for “the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
